I was taught that by my Uncle when I was about 15 years old, was bird hunting and ran across a nice Buck ... I'm glad you posted that because I plum forgot about doing that with shotgun shells ... Once they are cut like that they can easily drop a Deer, I saw it happen with my own eyes ... WPT ... (YAC) ...

My Grandfather showed me how to do that. He grew up doing it for deer but with paper shells and before plastic wads. His technique was to "almost" cut the paper hull all the way through but not quite. I think he advised to make the cut about 2/3rds of the way down so the cut was about mid-way on the fibre wad column between the powder and shot.

Matt you have to cut approx 1/2 down the (plastic) length of the shell as I recall and after seeing them do it on the video ... Its makes the ol' 12 gauge a rifle and they are really pretty accurate ... I'm not sure where my Uncle learned it but it was one of those things you pass on to friends and family just for giggles ... WPT ... (YAC) ...

Had a buddy cut five 12 g. ,3 1/4 , 1 oz./8's "dove loads'.......shot them into a piece of cardboard tacked to a telephone pole (from about 20 paces). When he took the cardboard down all that was holding the pole up was It's wires.

I saw some old timers put on a demonstration using these at my old gun club in New York back in the late '60s.

They set up an old oak plank, did a regular pattern on it first, then took a cut shell and fired it from probably 25 yards...plank pieces blew out all over the place,,,nice clean hole on entry but the whole back of the board was shattered when it (the shell) exploded after entry.

A few years back this topic came up and Neil W. performed this test in his pressure gun and posted the results. The chamber pressures were extremely low on the scale according to what it would have been otherwise! I don't recall what the velocity was though?

My grandfather killed a black bear with such a load back in the 20s or very early 30s in WV! A cut shell makes for a devastating load at short distances!

I used to shoot with Earl Scripture in El Paso. I didn't see it happen, but heard the story of Earl betting someone that they could not knock an orange cone off the top of the traphouse from the 27 with a trap load. After they failed, he would bet them that he could do it. Then he would cut a shell and proceed to blow it off. Don't know if this is true or not, but it should be. rmy

Pat--Got that right about getting caught with one while deer hunting. Especially here in IL. They make that pretty clear in the rules/laws about having a shotshell while deer hunting. Never did unerstand why couldn't i shoot a rabbit while deer hunting. I wouldn't want to use the slug to do it. Of course we can't use 00 buck either so there you go. Some idiot would shoot a deer with 6's if you allowed it.